Tag Archives: Donald Trump

A Cold and Broken Hallelujah

On the Sunday after the election, I went to the local Unitarian fellowship for no reason other then to be in the company of others, and to hear the thoughts of a minister who always seems to find comforting words when there are none to be had. And as I expected, she did it well. Yet it was a voice from somewhere in the back of the sanctuary that brought me to a place that gave me an understanding of exactly how I felt in the moment.

There’s a tradition in this liberal religion of little tradition that we light candles to acknowledge both the joys and concerns of the past week. A woman took the microphone from the usher and spoke of her dear friend who had passed away on Monday night after fighting a losing battle to cancer. And this was not presented as a concern, but rather a joy. Why? Because her friend did not have to live another day to witness Donald Trump’s victory.

There is something so perversely desperate when death seems to be the best option, and yet I can’t deny thinking a similar thought while sitting in front of my television on election night and witnessing the willful bludgeoning of democracy. Not that I would ever contemplate doing something to myself, but I did have a moment of solace knowing I will turn sixty-five on my next birthday with many good years behind me and less in front. But for my children and all the others who shall inherit the sins of their parents, I mourn.

To be clear, this isn’t about politics. We all seem to have agreed that this was a contest between two flawed candidates, neither of whom would claim a large enough mandate to lead decisively and without rancor. To many people, and ironically the majority of those who voted, the choice was to reject Trump’s brand of pop culture fear, hate, and discrimination. Yet as a result of an electoral system few understand or can explain, the loser wins.

The death of Leonard Cohen was not a complete surprise. He telegraphed the expectation when he released his latest album and met with David Remnick for a beautiful New Yorker profile that ran in October. As he spoke of the challenge in finishing his final album You Want it Darker, he shared what it feels like when one is at the end of time:

“The big change is the proximity to death. I am a tidy kind of guy. I like to tie up the strings if I can. If I can’t, also, that’s O.K. But my natural thrust is to finish things that I’ve begun. I don’t think I’ll be able to finish those songs. Maybe, who knows? And maybe I’ll get a second wind, I don’t know. But I don’t dare attach myself to a spiritual strategy. I don’t dare do that. I’ve got some work to do. Take care of business. I am ready to die. I hope it’s not too uncomfortable. That’s about it for me.”

I found it peculiar that Leonard Cohen died the night before the election and yet we didn’t learn about it for several days after. I don’t know why his family waited to share the news but would like to imagine it was to allow the news cycle to do what it does and create a sacred space for Leonard’s life to be honored apart from the political cacophony. Given that every newspaper, magazine, and website has run hundreds if not thousands of stories on his life and work, it has been a passing of both love, respect, and memories.

By the time Saturday Night Live came on, I was already in bed and under the covers. In no mood to laugh or feel elevated, I dropped a sleeping pill to take me far away from the pain in my heart. On Sunday morning when I awoke, social media was smokin’ with news of Kate McKinnon’s moving performance of what may be Leonard Cohen’s most treasured and memorable song, played in the character of Hillary Clinton. I’ve watched it now a few dozen times, with tears never far away. This is how I am choosing to remember what once was, what could have been and what is yet to come.

I’m not giving up and neither should you.

This article was originally posted on the No Depression dot come website, as an Easy Ed Broadside column. The original title was Leonard Cohen Versus Donald Trump: Hallelujah Hallelujah.

Many thanks to artist Michelle Gengnagel for allowing me to use her image of Leonard Cohen. Based in the Seattle area, Michelle thinks getting a nose job is a waste of a good caricature. She studied traditional illustration at the Academy of Art and is qualified to create aesthetically delicious original art for advertisement, editorial, or narrative purposes.

On Fighters and Bullies, From Hope to Despair

This article was originally published on the No Depression dot com website a week before the American presidential elections, the one where Clinton beat Trump with popular votes but was trounced in the more more important Electoral College. The original title was ‘The Pivot from Warren Zevon to Maureen McGovern’ for reasons that will be clear if you choose to read it. The new title speaks for itself. God help us all.

I was thinking about the phrase “the long and the short of it” when I plugged “tall man and midget” into the Bing Image Search without regard for using an offensive term now considered to be perjorative. Pop culture aficionados and armchair athletes who still believe that professional wrestling is a sport will likely recognize Andre the Giant but might not know who the smaller man is.

By the smile on his face in that photo, you can probably figure out that this is a a staged photograph and Andre is not about to beat the little guy to a pulp. It’s a publicity stunt, and the shorter of the two men was a former champ and featherweight boxer by the name of Bobby Chacon, who was promoting a 1979 fight with world champion Alexis Arguello. He lost by a knockout in the seventh round.

Three years later, Chacon came back strong, winning five fights in a row, and was considered a serious title contender again. But his first wife, Valerie, wasn’t a fan of Bobby’s chosen profession, and pleaded with him to give up boxing. He refused, and the night before a big fight she used a rifle to kill herself. Choosing to move forward — and dedicating the fight to her memory — he beat his opponent. Over the next few years, he went on to hold two world titles.

Some may recall that Chacon makes an appearance in the 1987 Warren Zevon song, “Boom Boom Mancini.”

Chacon’s success continued throughout the early 1980s. He remarried, bought a large mansion, had over 40 horses, and collected Rolls Royces. And while his life appeared to be one of success, in 1984 he was convicted of beating his wife, and seven years later his son was killed in a gang shooting. By 2000, he’d remarried and divorced three more times, lost most of his savings, was being cared for by a nurse, and suffered from dementia pugilistica. Valerie’s earlier fears came true, and last September Bobby Chacon passed away at age 64.

While there’s nothing quite like a feel-good story to put things into perspective, please allow me to pivot.

If you’ve been following my Broadside columns over the past few months, it should come as no surprise that I’m hoping the American people will turn their backs on the con man with hate in his heart and choose instead to elect a slightly flawed woman as our new president. I am not naive: regardless of the outcome, the cacophony of hate and rhetoric will continue, as will increasing economic inequality and political gridlock.

We’re living in dark times with only slivers of sunshine. Some days can feel like an episode of Walking Dead.

Wait … cut to Zevon again.

Alright.

So, “the long and the short of it” is that while part of me feels as if we’re on a stinking, sinking ship, I’m a sucker for a great Hollywood ending. Which made me think of The Poseidon Adventure — one of the first big-budget disaster films ever made, back in 1972, about a cruise ship that drowns in the drink. It features that schlocky but beautiful theme song by the great Maureen McGovern.

There’s got to be a morning after
If we can hold on through the night
We have a chance to find the sunshine
Let’s keep on looking for the light

Just singing the first verse lifts the weight from my heart and, for the briefest of moments, I think I too can see the sunshine.

Oh, can’t you see the morning after?
It’s waiting right outside the storm
Why don’t we cross the bridge together
And find a place that’s safe and warm?

Yes. Yes — that’s what I want, too. Safe and warm.

Join me, America. Wake up on election day and vote for Hillary Clinton. And if, for some reason, it all goes crazy wacky bananas and the orange man gets the gig, hold someone you love close to you and sing:

It’s not too late, we should be giving
Only with love can we climb
It’s not too late, not while we’re living
Let’s put our hands out in time

Musicians Work For Peanuts Without Shell Corporations

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This was originally published on October 6, 2016, a month before the last presidential election. As we all know, the Republican candidate won.

These past few days and weeks have been pretty rough out there on the American political landscape for the Republican nominee for president. Putting aside having had his clock cleaned in a televised debate in front of 84 million people, tweeting disturbing early morning rants about a Latina beauty queen he calls Miss Piggy — and lying about her making a sex tape — he’s also accusing his opponent of marital infidelity and his charitable foundation is being investigated for fraud. Now comes news that he used a tax loophole to avoid paying personal income tax for close to 20 years.

And who knows for sure; maybe he’s never paid a dime. Ever. He is the first and only modern presidential nominee who refuses to share his income taxes with the public. I think my late father would probably say something like, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

Now I don’t know about you, but I have been filing and paying my taxes for close to 44 years. I’m not alone. My friends, relatives, co-workers, and neighbors pay their share too. And while we all complain and wish we could pay a lot less, most of my people are considered middle-class wage earners, and we’re not able to take advantage of the tax laws and loopholes that are given to the wealthy folks. My entire life, I’ve heard politicians tell me that they’ll fix it once elected, but it hasn’t changed. If you want to talk about a rigged system, you can start right there.

Back in the early 1990s, Donald Trump’s hotel-airline-casino empire fell apart and he filed bankruptcy four times. He laid off thousands of people, stiffed contractors and suppliers, stripped the value of his holdings to leave his creditors with staggering losses, and he took money off the table for himself. He proudly calls himself a “brilliant” businessman. He claims he’s the best candidate to fix the system since he is a genius at ripping it off. To me, that’s the equivalent of putting Charles Manson in charge of overhauling our criminal justice system.

Now, before I go too far off on a tangent here, let me pull it back a little bit. Since this is a music website, lets talk about musicians. For the sake of this conversation, lets exclude those on the level of Bruce or Bono, Madonna or Taylor. Let’s be real: for every Snoop Dogg, there are probably 25,000 players barely making minimum wage.

https://youtu.be/-WXy-h5scjk

Your favorite Americana-folk-blues-jazz-bluegrass picker-singer-songwriter-indie-alt-whatever musician might crowd source 20 thousand dollars to record and market an album, go out on the road and perform at clubs, coffeehouses, house concerts and maybe some festival dates, travel for the most part on four wheels in a crowded vehicle, eat whatever food is offered to them, take time to do benefit shows every so often, and then spend some serious dough to go to trade shows and conventions to drum up even more dates. If they’re lucky, at the end of the year, they’ll pull in somewhere between 20 to 80 thousand dollars a year. Just an un-educated guess. Maybe more, maybe less.

Reaching out to some of my friends who actually make their living playing songs for you and me, I asked them how they earned their dough, kept track of expenses, and managed to run a business while staying creative. Not surprising, it ain’t easy.

For those at the low end of the range, there are some tax laws that allow for them to keep most of what they earn. Moving up the income level, they balance obligations and deductions just like most other creative types and independent contractors. Without a day job, there’s nobody contributing a portion of their check into social security, so they pay the full amount. There’s no employer providing health insurance, so that’s another expense. It’s a little easier to do that today with the Affordable Care Act, but healthcare is still pretty expensive for many people and you’ve got oodles of Republican politicians trying to take it away altogether.

On the other hand, musicians and other independent contractors can write off some expenses that people with regular jobs cannot: travel expenses, meals on the road, clothes for the stage, music to listen to, lessons to hone their skills, concert tickets and instruments. If they have an office in their home or a studio, there might be other deductions available.

A musician has to document business-related spending by keeping track of daily receipts, expenses, and a detailed travel log, and it helps if they keep separate bank accounts and credit/debit cards for business expenses. Many have an accountant and probably just as many don’t. It basically comes down to feeling confident with their financial literacy, and balancing that with the complexity of their musical endeavors.

And at the beginning of each year, musicians gather up their 1099 forms, figure out what they earned, calculate what they paid out, and guess what … they pay their taxes. Just like me, just like you.

There’s an argument to be made that paying your “fair share” is a patriotic act. But there’s also another way to look at it, and it’s about millions of people chipping in a portion of what they earn to help all of us enjoy a decent life. Not just the one percent who make the most money, but each of us.

In closing, I went over to the website for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities to see exactly how our tax dollars are spent. Here’s the breakdown:

25%: Health care or long-term care to about 72 million low-income children, parents, elderly people, and people with disabilities.

24%: Social Security for 40 million retired workers, 2.3 million spouses and children of retired workers, 6.1 million surviving children and spouses of deceased workers, and 10.8 million disabled workers and their eligible dependents.

16%: Defense and security-related international activities.

10%: Safety net programs to individuals and families facing hardship.

8%: Benefits for retired federal workers and veterans.

6%: Interest debt.

4%: All other expenses.

3%: Education.

2%: Science and medical research.

2%: Transportation infrastructure.

In the case of Donald Trump, this list is what he didn’t contribute to. We did, but he didn’t. Nothing for our vets, our military, our kid’s education, the elderly, the sick, those in need of a helping hand, highways, bridges, airports, trains, or border security.

Thanks for nothing — and I do mean nothing.

https://youtu.be/qBlEJ0teznM

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed here at my own site, therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboard and Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana and Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email address is easyed@therealeasyed.com.

Was Bruce Springsteen Born in the USA?

As you know, over the past several months, the mainstream media, which is controlled by … well, I don’t need to say it … has been been running articles and news stories virtually every single day in advance of Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography, Born To Run.

The book is being published by Simon and Schuster, a company founded by a man with German-Jewish ancestry who incidentally was the father of singer-songwriter Carly Simon who was once married to a musician known to authorities as a heroin addict. Currently the publisher is a subsidiary of CBS Corporation, which is an international multimedia conglomerate that just so happens to also produce the television series Sabrina the Teenage Witch. So to be crystal clear, an organization that broadcasts a subliminal Satanic message aimed directly at young children is now assisting in advancing a possible lie that a politically subversive popular guitarist and singer was born in the USA.

I don’t have to tell you that many people have often questioned the heritage of Bruce Springsteen, who has spent much of his career associating and advancing the music and politics of people like Pete Seeger, the late activist who refused to answer questions from the US Congress surrounding his membership in the Communist Party. Our huge and experienced investigative team of reporters has been working around the clock in fact-checking an early advance of Born To Run, and we’ve uncovered many inaccuracies that raise more questions about just who this man is.

For example, we have uncovered that the author writes at length in the book about his father’s Irish-American heritage, a man who went by the name of Dutch Springsteen. Consulting a world map and encyclopedia, as well as scrutinizing Where’s Waldo?, our geo-political specialists now confirm the close proximity to Germany of the former Dutch Republic currently known as the Netherlands. The importance of this is that origin of the name Springsteen is now in question.

It is a well documented fact that in an article published in 2013, TheNew York Times “misspelled” the Boss’s last name as “Springstein,” which I’m not saying actually means something, but most of us can clearly see the unintended link to Gertrude Stein. A self-described lesbian, Stein (who as you know, is often pronounced as Steen) promoted pro-immigration and democratic policies throughout her life, with a mix of reactionary and progressive ideas. Although I’m not trying to insinuate it, the coincidence is troubling.

While none of these actual historical facts (and there are hundreds more that will be revealed in the next few weeks) can be linked to Bruce Springsteen, in the shadows of this new dark autobiography, there are some people who are beginning to question his political views and heritage, wondering out loud if his most popular song, “Born In The USA,” was written and released to cover up his true nationality.

I now can officially report to you that despite sending hundreds of telepathic messages to New Jersey officials through a medium located inside a Brooklyn storefront on Flatbush Avenue, these government bureaucrats have absolutely refused to provide me a copy of Bruce Springsteen’s birth certificate. My amazing attorneys are preparing a lawsuit which will be filed very soon in federal court and I can promise that I will get to the bottom of this conspiracy and report my findings no matter how long it takes.

I dashed off the above piece of fiction the morning after Donald Trump attempted to erase years of his own infamous lies and deception directed toward President Barack Obama. In his role as the loudest and most vocal spokesperson of what we identify as the “birther movement,” Trump has built his political career based on racism and bigotry. Along with his ability to consistently state lies and falsehoods that too often go unchecked, he teaches all of us how easy it is to cast doubt and suspicion through innuendo and fear. He is everything wrong about the values and beliefs of our great country.

I apologize to Bruce Springsteen for using him and his new book as a vehicle for making my point, and want to be clear that this represents my own views and not those of either owner and publisher, editor or staff of No Depression website or magazine, nor any parent or subsidiary companies.

Let’s close it out with a little music … and please use your vote to keep America safe, sane and free forever from demagogues and con men.

This was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column at No Depression dot com.

Could Richard Thompson Have a Hit Single?

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On the Friday night before the long July Fourth holiday weekend, I drove alone in my car beneath a dark, threatening sky. As I approached the turnoff to the hamlet of Chappaqua, New York, home of Bill and Hillary Clinton, the rain began to fall but I decided to move forward. A few miles north on the twisty turns of Route 22, the sheets of water — along with the snap, crackle, and pop of the thunder and lightening — forced me to pull off the main road to wait it out.

An outdoor summer concert is always a spin of the wheel when weather chooses to roll in, and I knew Richard Thompson had easily sold out the venue to which I was headed, the intimate Spanish Courtyard at Caramoor, which holds no more than five hundred souls, if that. On the grounds of what once was the summer estate of a prominent and wealthy New York family, the arts and music center is now a seasonal destination for fans of classical, opera, pop, jazz, and American roots music.

Fortunately there are several venues on the sprawling grounds of gardens and trails, and so the show was moved to the larger, tented Venetian Theater. The upside was twofold: more tickets could be sold to those who had previously been denied a seat and whose names sat on a waiting list, and we all kept dry.

I’ve seen Thompson on quite a few occasions over the years, so I was unsurprized when he dazzled and delighted the crowd this night with his usual mix of guitar wizardry, song selections from Fairport Convention and the repertoire he recorded with ex-wife Linda, and titles pulled from his voluminous solo work. With an always comical and interesting stage patter, he was both engaging and sentimental. Acknowledging the recent passing of fellow musician and friend Dave Swarbrick, Thompson spoke of the upcoming 50-year anniversary of Fairport, which he co-founded in 1967. To mark the occasion, he delivered a moving version of Sandy Denny’s “Who Knows Where the Time Goes,” which has become a standard at many of his concerts.

So the “hit single” thing…

Last year, as a bonus-trackon Thompson’s Jeff Tweedy-produced album Still, he introduced a song called “Fergus Laing,” which is about a wealthy developer who buys property and builds golf courses in Scotland. Sound familiar? It didn’t take much persuasion to get the Caramoor crowd to sing along with glee to the chorus:

Fergus he builds and builds
Yet small is his erection
Fergus has a fine head of hair
When the wind’s in the right direction

With the protest song movement of the 1960s merely a faint memory, it fascinates me that it takes a man from England who lives in Los Angeles to write a song that eviscerates with sarcasm and humor the man whom the Huffington Post describes daily in ways such as this:

Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims ― 1.6 billion members of an entire religion ― from entering the U.S.

I imagine it’s simply my little dream, but it would be quite the coup if “Fergus Laing” got picked up by social media and terrestrial radio only to spread as fast as the Pokemon Go app. Since nothing else seems able to stop the blonde-haired beast, maybe a song can.

With very few artists as of yet willing to stand up to the Trump Train (I do love the Dixie Chicks), many people might enjoy having an anthem to raise their voices to. Perhaps with just a little promotional push, “Fergus Laing” can stand beside “Eve of Destruction” and “I Ain’t Marchin’ Anymore.”

Here’s the lyrics, and at the bottom is Thompson performing it. (Yes, You Tube’s spelling is incorrect. Let that not deter you. Raise your voice.)

Fergus Laing is a beast of a man
He stitches up and fleeces
He wants to manicure the world
And sell it off in pieces
He likes to build his towers high
He blocks the sun out from the sky
In the penthouse the champagne’s dry
And slightly gassy

Fergus Laing, he works so hard
As busy as a bee is
Fergus Laing has 17 friends
All as dull as he is
His 17 friends has 17 wives
All the perfect shape and size
They wag their tails and bat their eyes
Just like Lassie

Fergus he builds and builds
Yet small is his erection
Fergus has a fine head of hair
When the wind’s in the right direction

Fergus Laing and his 17 friends
They live inside a bubble
There they withdraw and shut the door
At any sign of trouble
Should the peasants wail and vent
And ask him where the money went
He’ll simply say, it’s all been spent
On being classy

Fergus’ buildings reach the sky
Until you cannot see ‘um
He thinks the old stuff he pulls down
Belongs in a museum
His fits are famous on the scene
The shortest fuse, so cruel, so mean
But don’t call him a drama queen
Like Shirley Bassey

Fergus Laing he flaunts the law
But one day he’ll be wired
And as they drag him off to jail
We’ll all shout, “You’re fired!”

This was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside on the No Depression website.

Photo credit: Pamela Littky / richardthompson-music.com

Does It Matter That Loretta Lynn Supports Donald Trump?

loretta-lynn-donald-trump-getty-640x480 I can’t recall a single time that a celebrity endorsement, whether for a politician or commercial product, influenced my decision to vote or buy. I come to my opinions and choices based on my own experiences, research, and conversations with other folks, and while there’s always more to learn that could make me change course, adding a celebrity’s opinion into the mix is probably the lowest factor on my totem pole.

During the current election season in America, political endorsements range from the obvious to humorous. For example, Neil Young and Lucinda Williams have spoken out in support of Bernie Sanders. George Clooney is a Hillary supporter, and he joins a star-studded list that includes Britney Spears, Kendall Jenner (her parent, Caitlyn, likes Ted Cruz), and Snoop Dogg. I can’t find any celebrity speaking out on behalf of John Kasich, but Donald Trump has quite a long list of supporters including Ted Nugent, Sarah Palin, Kirstie Alley, Tom Brady … and Loretta Lynn.

Last January, Lynn gave an interview to Reuters where she said, “Trump has sold me – what more can I say?” Here’s the rest, in case you missed it:

Lynn, 83, who penned and recorded country hits like “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” “The Pill” and “Rated X,” still performs between eight and 10 shows a month. She said she has been stumping for Trump at the end of each show, and declared her support for him at an awards dinner in New York in early December.

She said her audiences generally respond warmly to her cheers for Trump, and that’s unusual.

“When you get up there and try to say you want to see Hillary Clinton win, that wouldn’t go over so big,” she said.

Other Republicans can’t live up to the real estate mogul, Lynn said, but Texas Senator Ted Cruz would be her second choice. However, she said: “When you’re advertising for the best, forget the rest!”

Lynn added that she wants to campaign for him.“I just think he’s the only one who’s going to turn this country around,” she said, but added she had no plans to try to contact Trump herself. “I’m going to let him call me.”

For the past month, I’ve been thinking a lot about Loretta Lynn. Her first new album in a dozen years is high on the charts, generating a lot of interest. Media on every possible front — from Pitchfork to AARP’s monthly magazine — are paying attention. There’s her staggering duet and video with Willie Nelson that has made the rounds on social media, and the PBS American Masters documentary Loretta Lynn: Still a Mountain Girl. It’s almost impossible to escape the majesty of her talent and achievements. This seems to be her moment.

Since 2007 Lynn has been working in the studio with John Carter Cash and her daughter Patsy Lynn Russell. They’ve already recorded 93 songs and she hopes to keep going. As she told The New York Times last month, she is thinking about her legacy.

“I wanted the kids to have ’em,” Ms. Lynn said. “I thought, everybody, they don’t think about what they’re leaving. So I went in and I thought, I’m going to cut every song I’ve ever had out. I started with my first hits and I cut the Top 5s and then the Top 10s. And then I just started cutting some that I wrote and some that I’ve always wanted to sing.”

Mr. Cash said Ms. Lynn has finished full albums’ worth of gospel, Appalachian and Christmas songs, along with favorites from her own repertoire and cover songs. “It was like filling in an encyclopedia,” Mr. Cash said in an interview at the Cash Cabin Studio in Hendersonville, Tenn.

A few weeks after that was printed, she seemed to offer a different viewpoint for this Garden and Gun article:

Legacy don’t mean a thing to me. I’m just glad people like me. I don’t need to go out and charge a lot of money to do a show. I am proud that people feel that way toward me and I love them for it. I get a bang out of being out there. I don’t think that ever changes, the feeling you get when you’re out there onstage. Some people think they’re better than what they are. Ain’t none of them that good.

Merriam-Webster defines legacy as “a gift by will, especially of money or other personal property, or something transmitted or received from an ancestor or from the past.” I tend to think that Lynn is interested in what people will remember her for, which the dictionary explains as “recalling what has been learned and retained especially through associative mechanisms.” And music is one helluva mechanism.

Politics? That could be another.

I don’t like Donald Trump. I think he has a black heart full of rage, anger, and intolerance. The thought that he could become the leader of my country strikes intense fear in me, and I honestly can’t understand why other people can’t see or feel what I do. When Loretta Lynn, a person I have enormous respect and admiration for, comes out and says she supports him … I’m just damn conflicted.

But during these times of such sharp divide between people, I find solace in these words from Pete Seeger, who reminded us, “It’s a very important thing to learn to talk to people you disagree with.”

While I doubt that Loretta and I will get a chance to meet at Starbucks for a cup of coffee and conversation, I’d like to imagine that if we did there might be a possibility we’d each come away with a better understanding of why we’re standing at opposite points on the political spectrum today. Perhaps we could find a path to move closer. (There is some hope — she’s said that she likes Barack and Michelle Obama, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton.)

It might seem easy to simply condemn Lynn for her support of Trump, but it’s a soft target. If you believe in free will and free speech, then you have to recognize that she has every right to stand on the stage and say whatever she wants. While I won’t pay to hear her say it, I also won’t stop listening to her music and thinking respectfully of the trails she’s blazed for women, and the progressive issues she’s spoken out about, through her music.

But celebrity endorsements? I couldn’t care less.

This was originally published as an Easy Ed Broadside column on the No Depression website.

Oh No…A Facebook Friend Supports Donald Trump…What Would Pete Seeger Do?

Once upon a time I collected Facebook friends as if they were baseball cards. The more the merrier it seemed, drawing together a large community and network of people from my past, present and future. Childhood friends, high school girlfriends, long lost co-workers, fellow travelers and even the friends of other Facebook friends who I’d meet only via comments and online chats. I linked them on Linkedin and connected with them on Twitter, put their email addresses in a contact file and stayed in touch such as it was by watching their lives move across the magic screen in an endless parade of family and pet pictures, status updates that ranged from silly to sad and of course news, views and opinions. Lots of those.

Like many, I fell into the trap. With too much time on my hands and a sense of self-righteousness, and indignation, I used Facebook as a means to communicate political rants and anger by finding articles with similar viewpoints as my own and sharing them along with my wonderfully witty and sarcastic personal observations. It seemed like the right thing to do…quickly reaching a few hundred folks with a cut, paste and post. And when my friends responded by hitting the ‘LIKE’ button, it only fueled that addictive rush of confirmation and acceptance.

Look ma….they like me, they really do.

A couple of years ago I recognized that I didn’t much like the ‘social media Ed’ anymore. He’d grown jaded and isolated and snarky and petty. And I wasn’t alone. So I took a break, stopped posting anything for a few months, quietly watched what others were using social media for and went through my list of Facebook friends…silently deleting more than half of them. The next thing I did was to create a new Facebook identity, one that only reflects my passion and interest in particular forms of American vernacular music and serves as a place where I can share my published work. It seems healthier for mind and spirit. (If you care…here it is.)

The other night a gentleman named Ian from Minneapolis who I once worked with about fifteen years ago and remains on my list of Facebook friends posted this…which I am slightly editing to cut to the essence of his thoughts:

I find myself stepping away from Facebook as I’m appalled by the endless, vile and petty posts that serially savage political candidates on an hourly basis. I understand that people are passionate but endless repetition changes nobody’s mind. Maybe going for a walk and screaming obscenities is a better plan. I prefer to remember my Facebook friends as they were before this endless political cycle.

Yes…I could feel my head nod in agreement to that. But wait…he can’t possibly be talking about me, could he? Haven’t I been a good Facebook citizen these past years? Wasn’t I a recovered and reformed serial poster who walked through social media with better judgement than in my past?

I ran to my personal page…a few pictures of my kids, a couple of links to recent music-related articles I’ve written, shameless self-promotion of my other Facebook page, my personal website and…oh no…almost a dozen anti-Donald Trump stories mostly from Huffington Post or Politico going back to last July. Where they hell did those come from? What was I thinking?

In ten minutes they were all deleted. Without even realizing it, I had became the angry Ed again on a mission to share my political feelings to friends. And to be clear, sharing thoughts and having conversation is not only important but essential…and I am extremely angry and pissed off and scared about the rise in popularity of a man I consider to be exactly what the Huffington Post calls him out on every single day:

Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.

But the dilemma is how does one express and communicate emotion and passion about any issue on a slash and burn media platform that is in reality not conversational in any way, shape or form. Whether you post an update or leave a comment, you are pushing out and not pulling in. It may give you satisfaction and inner-bliss, but it does nothing to connect you to another person and you’re left shouting words over the roar of an ocean.

It was at this moment I should have shut off my computer, turned off the lights and went to bed. But I decided I needed to respond to my old friend. This is in part what I wrote:

Everyone has access to whatever news media they choose, everybody can read, discover and come to their own opinions, everybody carries their own experiences and views. Does anybody think that posting yet another HuffPo or NYTimes piece about some politician saying something outrageous will move the needle? No. I imagine we think it portrays us as witty or clever, or we have this delusion that we can change peoples views with a simple cut and paste or worse yet….our very own ‘on the fly’ observations.

So anyway, I’m sort of going to start moving forward with the WWPD approach. What’s that you ask? What Would Pete (Seeger) Do?

From what I’ve been told by friends of his, and I won’t pretend to know for sure if this is the truth or a tale, in his later years when something happened that Pete felt he needed to speak out on, he’d write it down on a piece of cardboard, go stand on a corner in his hometown of Beacon New York, and hold it up for people to see. I can imagine some folks would drive past and ignore him, and some might pull over and ask ‘What’s up Pete’?’

If you are the person who wants to work toward a goal, or make a change in someones life, do it one to one. Person to person. In conversation, not a meme. Leave social media for cat videos, signposts of life and passing, new restaurants, trips, friends, promoting your products or services and the very very very very occasional moment when you can connect again with someone you’ve thought you lost.

Lights off. Sleep came.

Yesterday I took a few hours and looked over my current list of Facebook friends. There are just 305 of them now, down from what once was over a thousand. I have found two who are very vocal about supporting Donald Trump and one who used to like Marco Rubio but now is pushing Ted Cruz. All three individuals are professional colleagues from over two decades ago, but they’ve remained on my friends list because I liked them when we worked together and we created a connection that is unexplainably still there at the very least with good memories.

I won’t lie…for a moment my finger hovered over the delete button…the kill switch. Is it possible to actually have a friend in my life…online or real…whose views run polar opposite of my own? And it’s not like we talk or see each other or likely ever will. I should just cut and run. They’re still there.

I recall this quote from Pete Seeger, and it has helped untangle my thoughts.

It’s a very important thing to learn to talk to people you disagree with.

The next few months are likely to get more turbulent and divisive. The shouting will get louder, the rhetoric more heated, the lines further divided. While I have not been one who actively campaigns or takes to the streets in protest as I did in my youth, neither apathy and inaction…nor hiding behind a keyboard…can be the acceptable default position. I will raise my voice, but I will speak to people and not at them.

I’m not completely in touch with why Pete Seeger’s spirit and voice have long resonated within me, but they do. He’s the closest thing to what I would call a hero, and I wish he was still here with us today. His presence would comfort. What would Pete do?

He’d make us sing together of course.